Sensory Perception
by AngelCallie
Summary: In late summer, minds wander. Riza Hawkeye, as observed by her five male co-workers.
1. Sight

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal.**

**Sight**

The afternoon was passing very slowly and Vato Falman's attention was beginning to wander away from the papers piled before him on the desk. Colonel Mustang had spun his chair around to face the window so that none of them could see him, but they all knew that he was most likely taking a nap. Fuery, too, seemed to be nodding off despite his best efforts, his head dropping down toward the small collection of devices arrayed on his desk awaiting repairs. Breda was making no pretense at working as he lounged back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. Even Havoc was staring blankly at his papers with drooping eyelids and a pen held limply in his hand.

Only Hawkeye remained diligent, the laziness of the afternoon not seeming to affect her. Her mahogany eyes scanned over each page and her small, skilled hands lay folded on the desk when they were not turning pages or holding a pen. Before Vato realized it, he found his whole attention absorbed with watching her. He tried to be discreet, his eyes half-lidded and hopefully unreadable as he pretended to look at the forms and reports in front of him.

The afternoon sun was shining at a slant through the window of the office and lighting up her blonde hair, making the stray strands glow like a halo. Usually Hawkeye was very fastidious about keeping her hair neat and out of the way, twisted up into the brown bar clip she always wore, but it looked as if she had forgotten to correct some of the strands and they lay now, wisps of gold falling down onto her shoulders. Falman watched as she moved her right hand, her palm and fingers calloused from handling firearms, up off the desk and rested her cheek on it, her attention never leaving the page. She read on, eyes focused and lips slightly pursed in concentration. This was a surprisingly casual posture for her, and it made Falman think that perhaps she wasn't as immune to the general mood of indolence that permeated the office as he had thought. But even despite her slight acquiescence to languor, Falman mused, she was a model of perfection and beauty – of a soldier and a woman. She had resisted taking off her jacket, despite the late summer heat, but the shape of her slight shoulders and slim but strong body was still discernable beneath the layers of blue fabric. She was like silk and steel, a fusion of delicate beauty and stony resolve. Her round face and big brown eyes and perfect lips, all framed by light blond hair might have looked out of place in the office of a Colonel in the Amestrian military if the look in those same pretty eyes was not so intense. There was something about her, about the way she looked at you and the way she carried herself, the flash of her eyes and the readiness of her trigger finger that spoke of a quiet strength that was not to be ignored and a lightness and grace that could not be denied.

As he studied her, mind wandering into strange poesy, Vato saw her eyes finally stop flitting over the page and glance over at the back of the brown chair where Mustang was sleeping. A very small, slightly devious smile curled her lips for just a second before she stood and took four measured steps toward the window. The rays from the low sun gave her skin a warm golden glow and her hair, those strands that were free of the bar clip, floated in the hot summer breeze that came in through the open window before her. Her hands were clasped respectfully behind her back but her little fingers curled mischievously as she turned her head just slightly toward the Colonel.

"Nothing is getting done in this heat, sir," she said, and at the sudden sharp sound of her voice there was a startled gasp from the chair and Mustang jumped awake, looking in panic all around him until he realized that he was still in the office. Hawkeye smiled perversely for just a second and then hid her amusement quickly. "Perhaps we should call it a day?"

"Uh, sure," the Colonel said groggily, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes with the back of one heavy hand. "Take the rest of the day off, men. But you'd better come in tomorrow ready to work."

"Yes, sir," they answered and began to gather up their things. Hawkeye returned to her desk to organize her papers and writing implements as she did every day before leaving and for a moment she caught Vato's eye with hers. A little knowing smile spread across her face and up into those warm brown eyes until she turned away again to face the Colonel. She saluted him, her back straight as a rod, and he waved her off, as he did every day, and she turned on her heel and left the room, the graceful bend of her pale neck above the top of her collar catching a stray sunbeam as she went through the door.

"What are you looking at, Falman?" asked Mustang, an unreadable smirk on his lips and a spark in his eyes.

"What?" he asked, startled. "Oh, nothing, sir."

The Colonel just continued to smile. "I thought so." And Vato wached as Mustang walked out of the office before him and into their newly free afternoon.


	2. Sound

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal. **

**Sound**

Heymans Breda was bored. This usually happened when he and the rest of Colonel Mustang's staff were stuck in the office for days on end. Breda, rather like his Colonel, was easily bored by paperwork. The continual necessity of filling it out was something that he had not really considered when he had originally entered the academy. It had all seemed so exciting and noble until he had been handed his first tall stack of reports to review and authorizations to sign. He sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair, his uniform jacket hanging open and revealing his dark brown uniform undershirt.

The rest of the Colonel's staff was working away, consumed in their different tasks, so there wasn't even anyone for Breda to talk to in his boredom. Colonel Mustang wasn't even there – he and First Lieutenant Hawkeye were in a meeting with the visiting General Hakuro, but Falman, Havoc, and Fuery all sat at their desks acting like model soldiers. Meanwhile, Breda could not muster the enthusiasm to continue with the simple task of signing off on some equipment requisitions for the Eastern Command center.

He started to whistle a bit, enjoying the sound of it in the quiet office, but he stopped abruptly when he heard two sets of familiar footsteps coming down the hall toward the office. Quickly he bent to his paperwork, pretending he had been working all along.

"Good afternoon, men," said Mustang as he sauntered through the door and made for his desk, First Lieutenant Hawkeye following close behind and holding a thick brown folder to her chest.

"Looks like it went well with General Hakuro," said Havoc as they passed.

"Let's just say that we probably won't be stuck out here in the boondocks for much longer," the Colonel answered haughtily.

Breda heard an exasperated sigh come from Hawkeye as she pulled out the chair to her desk, right beside his, and sat, immediately applying herself to the paperwork before her. The steady rhythm of her measured breathing beside him became a sort of white noise and he too bent to his work.

But it didn't take long before he was distracted again, hearing another set of footsteps that were all too familiar too him. He let out a yelp and jumped from his seat and he heard, beside him, the sound of Hawkeye's quick hands reaching for her gun and the metallic click as she prepared to fire. She stood now, all muscles tensed, the base of her gun on her open palm and her trigger finger ready and pointed at the door.

When Black Hayate appeared at the door, her body eased and she breathed out in relief.

"Breda," she said sternly, a note of irritation in her even voice. "Sit down."

"Honestly, Breda," said the Colonel, unable to hide the derisive amusement in his voice "it's disgraceful. You call yourself a soldier and yet you shriek like a girl every time a little dog appears."

"I can't help it, sir," he apologized.

"Hayate?" said Hawkeye as she moved toward the small dog that had started the little uproar. There was concern in her voice that surprised Breda and when he looked toward the beast he could see it was limping as it moved toward Hawkeye. The lieutenant crouched down to the dog's level and put a hand on its head. "What's the matter?" Her voice was so soft and worried that Breda almost didn't recognize it. The dog whimpered, only once, and lifted its front paw awkwardly.

Hawkeye took the raised paw in her hands and turned it over, her brow furrowed with concern.

"What's the matter, Lieutenant?" asked Mustang.

"It's just a thorn, sir," she answered. "I think I can pull it out."

Hayate's big eyes watched as his master gently grabbed the thorn stuck in his paw and pulled it out of his little black foot pad. She rubbed her thumb against the little wound for a second and then let the dog's foot go.

"There now," she said so softly that Breda would not have heard it at all if she was not right beside him. "Better?" She patted him on the head and waited as he tested his foot and decided that it was healed. He jumped forward and licked her face, eliciting a small pleased laugh from the lieutenant that Breda had _definitely _never heard before. And it was over so quickly that he almost couldn't be sure he had heard it at all.

The little dog bounded off again, probably back out to the grassy area behind HQ to chase grasshoppers, and Hawkeye returned to her desk, glancing once around the room at the four men to make sure they got back to work as well. Breda forced himself to reread the form in front of him again before signing it, the steady sound of Hawkeye's pen and even breathing setting a tempo by which he slogged through the rest of his paperwork.


	3. Smell

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal. **

**Smell**

The belltower room was very small and, even though it was dark, Fuery could still see the first lieutenant sitting close beside him. They had been installed here – "just in case" the Colonel had said – for several hours now and the moon had risen and was shining in through the window in front of which Hawkeye sat.

Fuery pretended not to be uncomfortable with the situation, attending to the headsets and the small radio they had brought with them in order to keep in contact with the Colonel and the others. Riza Hawkeye was both beautiful and deadly, two things that made Fuery more than a little scared of her. He had the utmost respect for her of course. She was practically the perfect officer and her loyalty to the Colonel and her coolness under pressure had always impressed him. He was far from cool under pressure, he knew that. He wished he was more like her, her steady hand on the trigger of her rifle and her cold, assessing eyes never giving anything away.

The moonlight was shining on her blond hair, the hood of her cloak lying over her shoulders and leaving it bare to the silver light. She really was quite beautiful, despite how severe she sometimes appeared. There was a gentleness to her that he had seen on rare occasions, and sometimes it showed through in the softness of her features. Those large mahogany eyes held both fierceness and kindness in concert and he felt himself filled with both fear and admiration when she turned them on him.

"Hey, Kate," called the Colonel's voice over the radio and into Fuery's ears. "How's it going? So, do you think you could put Elizabeth on the phone for me?"

"The Colonel wants to talk to you," he said, pulling a second headset out for Hawkeye to put over her ears. He saw a slight flash of light off one of her earrings as she put the headphones on.

"Hey there, Roy," she said warmly, a flirtatious purr in her voice playing up the act in case anyone was listening in. Both her tone and the fact that the short cord on the headset was making her lean over him slightly made Fuery even more nervous. He tried to contract himself into as small a space as possible so that he wouldn't touch her, but the tiny room provided him with few options.

Her head was right beside his, their shoulders practically touching. She was still somehow keeping an eye on the street below them, rifle at the ready, as she spoke to the Colonel over the radio.

The smell of her hair reached Fuery's nose before too long. The room was warm and the light breeze from the belltower window blew it right to him. She smelled like flowers, like the Lilies-of-the-Valley his mother grew in her garden at home, like the lilacs that bloomed for such a short time every spring. He was a little surprised at how good she smelled – he had rather expected her to smell more like metal and gunpowder and polishing cloths. He leaned in, almost involuntarily trying to get closer to the pleasant smell, to identify its components. She reached a hand up to steady the headphones and now he could smell the coppery scent of bullet casings and triggers, but the smell of her soap was there, too, rosewater and lavender. And, the further he leaned, somehow forgetting his earlier desire to retract away from her, the more he could detect the sharp, warm scent of the sweat gathering under her hairline and on the back of her neck.

"Is there something the matter, Sergeant?" she asked, those frightening, mesmerizing eyes now on him and her face only inches from his. Her expression was cool and unreadable and immediately sent Fuery into a panic.

"No, sir, nothing, sir, sorry, sir," he blathered, once again trying to shrink into a tiny ball.

"Calm down, Kain," she said, smiling softly and placing a hand on his shoulder, causing the smell of flowers and gunmetal to return to him. "The Colonel seems to think that everything will go smoothly tonight. We probably won't even be needed."

"That's good," he said, sighing with relief that she did not seem to have caught him in his highly inappropriate act of trying to . . . smell her. His cheeks turned red at the thought and he was thankful that she had turned away from him and back to the window and hadn't noticed.

But despite how inappropriate it might have been, he found himself furtively trying to again catch the scent of lilies and lilacs until the Colonel called them at sun-up and told them to move out.


End file.
